Posts Tagged ‘MiniTT1’

MAC Group, the U.S. distributor for PocketWizard Photo Products, announces a Fall Rebate Program. From now until November 30, 2013 you can receive money back on all your favorite transmitters and transceivers.

Get $15 off your purchase of a Plus®X or Plus® III.

Get $25 off your purchase of a MiniTT1® or FlexTT5®.

How it Works
Purchase one or more of the items above from your local PocketWizard dealer in the United States. Save the receipt and send it along with the filled out rebate form, which can be found via this page, and the original silver product label(s) from product packaging to this address:

Photographer Bobbi Lane has shared with us many of her secrets for creating gorgeous portrait photography in twoWebinars. Here, in her own words, she goes into detail about the most recent session she gave for PocketWizard viewers.

The idea for my portrait of the young woman with the nest and egg and feathers came out of a dream. I am a committed believer in exercising creativity and going through several processes to help develop ideas. One of the first steps in that process is brainstorming with other creative people, then writing down words to trigger ideas, and then letting it rest a bit and coming back to revisit the ideas in a few days. My associate Matt Burdick and I were sitting around one day talking about “what’s cool.” We tossed around a lot of concepts and then I arrived at “feathers.” I’ve been a birder all my life, even worked one summer at a bird observatory/banding station in Manomet, Massachusetts. I find and collect feathers wherever I go. To me, feathers are really cool.

Making Waves is a weekly round-up of current posts featuring PocketWizard products.

Justin Van Leeuwen of JVL Photography in Ottawa, Ontario has a great blog post up about his third year shooting the Cole family. This year’s shoot took place at their summer cottage. Electronic technology and water typically are not to be mixed, but that didn’t stop Van Leeuwen from doing his best to capture each of eight family members, plus their dog, while balancing a large octa on a floating raft.

Van Leeuwen utilized a MiniTT1, FlexTT5 and HyperSync® speeds to make this deceptively fun shot that definitely presented challenges to execute. He’s a Westcott-endorsed Pro and lens reviewer for canonrumors.com. We hope to explore more of his work in-depth in the future.

Dylan Patrick left Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to pursue his acting career in New York City. A few years after graduating from the New York Conservatory for Dramatic Arts in 2006, Patrick began his photography business in earnest. Finding his love of photography equalled his desire to act, he was soon earning a living as a photographer. Always a fan of cinema lighting, this photographer enjoys using shadows for added drama. Via word of mouth, other actors began to seek him out for their headshots because of the cinematic influences in his work. What actor doesn’t want to look like a movie star?

“Many of my clients, both current and prospective, as well as agents, casting directors, and even other shooters, have told me they love how my shots actually look like film stills,” Patrick says. “I stumbled upon my style on my roof shortly after getting the PocketWizard FlexTT5 transceivers, and I’ve slowly fine tuned ever since. You could say high-speed sync and PocketWizard helped me find my style. I’m always more excited to shoot on sunny days now, and I’m constantly looking for brilliant angular light, which is where a vast majority of the color comes from in my images.”

Currently a resident of the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood in Manhattan, Patrick hasn’t strayed far from the Great White Way. He was recently kind enough to explain, in his own words, how he created this portrait of a fellow actor on the streets of New York.

Chris Garrison
PocketWizard Blog reader-favorite Chris Garrison is still hot on the Red Bull scene. He put together a great post on a shoot combining the impossible, land and water sport figures together, featuring Terry Adams and Adam Errington. Packed with behind-the-scenes photos, two videos, and the whole story, don’t miss Chris Garrison and his PocketWizard FlexTT5 and PowerST4 pulling off the impossible. As always, get your fix of Chris Garrison at his site and blog.

Don Toothaker is a Massachusetts photographer who covers a wide range of subject matter. He also conducts classes at New England Photo Workshops. In his own words, Don was willing to take the time to address creativity, light, and how he executed the below photo.

Creativity is a powerful thing. As a photographer, too often I struggle with expressing myself from a different perspective. I know my camera equipment, I feel confident in my compositions, and I am secure photographing a variety of subjects but, despite all of that, creativity remains a personal nemesis.

Every Tuesday night my son takes hip-hop lessons at a local dance studio. The second story studio is large, but like many studios, is mostly bare. Sitting one night watching the class I was struck by the open expanse of the studio, the many windows, and one particular door. I loved the way light spilled into the room each time the door was opened. Looking at the door, the light, and the windows I was inspired to create a particular image. All I needed was a ballet dancer. All I needed was some creativity.

The following Behind the Scenes videos provide a quick overview of the MiniTT1, FlexTT5 and AC3 ZoneController in use by a variety of professional photographers.

Cliff Mautner provides a behind-the-scenes look of the MiniTT1, FlexTT5 and AC3 in action during a bridal shoot and gives a good overview of using the AC3 ZoneController in his work flow. The full story can be found here.

Stephen Richert is one tough dude. In 2012, he embarked on a yearlong trip into the mountains of North America where he would climb everyday for 365 days all while managing his type 1 diabetes. The result was the nonprofit, LivingVertical. Nick Percell was the photographer on hand to capture Stephen’s inspiring journey. Here’s how he did it, in his own words.

This first image is actually the last day of Project 365. We were climbing in Red Rock Conservation Area in Las Vegas, Nevada and had to visit this climb everyday until Steve was able to complete it. I knew the lighting wasn’t in my favor as far as angle and intensity, so I knew I was going to need to haul some sort of lightweight lighting that I could use HSS with. I wanted to have a shallow depth of field, f/2.0, which meant I had to shoot at 1/4000s; this helped a bunch with bringing the ambient light down and allowing me to focus the image more on Steve. I took my MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 with me to use with my Canon 580EX II and 430EX II speedlights. Considering all the rigging and such I carry up to the climb (about 70 lbs.), I needed to keep my gear lightweight and reliable.

Once I found a place I could get the shot, I placed a 430EX II about 75 feet from me, slightly below the climber to fill in some of the harsh shadow under him. The second light (580EX II) I ran on top of the MiniTT1 to help balance his left side with the hard light coming from the subject’s back right.

The reliability of the wireless system is crucial here when I’m in a harness secured to the rock and it’s not easy to reach the flash.

This second image was shot about a month before in Zion National Park, Utah. Steve, his wife Stephanie, and I went out looking for new climbing areas in the park, which meant we had to do a bunch of hiking with gear as we looked. When Steve found this line up this face, I knew right away that I really wanted to feature the face of this large textured boulder. When shooting things like this, I really have to try and get what I want quick as he’s climbing with no rope and no pad on rock that’s fragile.

Again I brought my MiniTT1 and FlexTT5 to take care of the wireless communication. I used a 430EX II flash on both sides of the climber, the closest being about 10 feet to my camera on the ground and another about 125 feet away on a stand. I used the light closest to me as a broader source and the light on the stand zoomed in to 105mm on the subject. I really needed the power out of these lights so I stayed away from the HSS this time, but with the lighting I was still able to darken the sky enough to feature the face of the rock more.

This third image was taken in Joe’s Valley, a bouldering area outside of St. George, Utah. The boulder we chose to shoot on was almost completely overhanging, leaving it in darkness with the sun coming from camera right. I knew I wanted a better depth of field and I needed to create the majority of light with a battery powered system. I used just a single source because I liked how the shadow separated him from the surface of the rock. As he climbed over the edge of the rock, the sun caught his face and made it possible to bring the background down in intensity.

This month’s feature is basically a road map for HyperSync®. Why a “road map?” Because HyperSync, a tool that could be used for all kinds of genius photography, seems to attract wheels. Motorcyles and BMX. Bicycles. And more motorcycles. Last month I called it BikerSync®. Mark Wallace, a motorcycle guy himself, wheeled down the road less taken and rallied a grand tour Webinar on HyperSync.

Here is some information we sent out to viewers before the Webinar. The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began, but the trip is a little smoother if you have the key to your magic decoder ring.

For years we’ve been drawn to what photographer Garth Milan continues to do. Sponsored by Red Bull, among other corporations, Milan is a master at freezing the action of extreme sports of all kinds. We recently caught up with him again, and he was kind enough to explain how he overpowered the Southern California sun and stopped motion at the same time. Here is his account of his most recent shoot.

This particular shoot with Red Bull athlete Curtis Keene posed two fairly large problems. One was the bright Santa Monica midday sun, and the other was the fact the trails we shot on were miles away from the nearest parking spot, which meant we had to hike up the normally “downhill” trails with any and all gear needed for the shoot.

All that being said, my assistant and I started our blister-inducing hike up with a camera body and several lenses, along with an Elinchrom Ranger, equipped with the PowerST4 to enable my PocketWizard to HyperSync® at any and all speeds. After one of the most intense hikes of my life (considering how much gear we had), we arrived at our destination to find, just as I thought, the lighting was less than ideal for shooting with the natural, ambient light.